The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • Rains; NASS’ women; After NASS dollars – ABCD-A Bag of Corruption Diamonds?; N23.5b- Murder charges?

    Rains; NASS’ women; After NASS dollars – ABCD-A Bag of Corruption Diamonds?; N23.5b- Murder charges?

    Another $1,000,000,000 or N155,000,000,000 or N1,550/Nigeria from Excess Crude Account. Yet governments fail to provide water, transport, education and power for business, domestic and recreation. Will the $1 billion just buy jets or diamonds?

    Nigeria’s rainy season must never again stop road maintenance work for 4-6months. Let the 2013 road maintenance motto be ‘Make Nigerian Roads Pothole-Free Year-round!’ It rains for only 50% of rainy season days. There is a quick-dry pothole filler and boots.

    The ban on network promos is a victory for citizens who have that money in the pocket estimated at N10+billion/annum. Hurray!

    When you question National Assembly (NASS) and government, you are attacked, sacked, or taken to court as a criminal or rubbished. The malignant pursuit of Oby Ezekwesili over government’s accountability for $67,000,000,000 or N10,050,000,000,000 or $670/Nigerian or N100,500/Nigerian is typical. Government should answer the question, ignoring her record or any perceived First Lady or Madam President political aspirations. Many have suffered imprisonment and execution for daring government. Remember the malicious entrapment of Professor Nike Grange and her court clearance two years later.

    Government and NASS’ ‘NASSty’ antics are like the Roman Emperor and Senate with the Roman Coliseum being both the NASS floor and ‘Public Hearings’ where citizens are torn to pieces by ‘NASS lions’. The NASS herd instinct shows against NASS’ women victims. Was Onagoruwa dismissed for ‘incompetence’ or ‘over-competence’ and stopping thieving politicians? The cases of whistle-blowing Oteh and Ezekwesili are fresh. There is Demuren thrown in for sex balancing. How much of this is ‘bad belle’ in NASS? Nigerians must be sceptical when NASS cries ‘wolf’. Too many wolves are in NASS, in sheep’s clothing and diverting attention from their irresponsibly high Salaries and Perks, ‘SAPing’ Nigeria dry. Serving NASS members give out N35-100,000,000 each as ‘constitutional grants/gifts’ totalling N15billion. Channel this money through government. The NASS investigation of the Sure –Plus also smells of NASS greed. As lawmakers, NASS in 2013 must stop being contractors, directly or by proxy.

    We need an arbitrator because the NASS should not be judge and jury and may not represent the people over its own interests and bias. We need judicial panels of enquiry, independent of NASS and government. Nigeria cannot survive many more multi-billion scams. Government since 1999 has failed responsibility for preventing stealing in its highly paid staff. Anti-corruption goes beyond rhetoric, posters, T-shirts and caps, hamstrung anti-corruption organisations and neglected police from pigsty colleges after paying N30,000 for entry form – scams exposed by NASS and Channels TV Award winning documentary. Government must think and introduce ways to prevent more ‘Financial Terrorism’ impoverishing citizens.

    Tell your children that Nigeria is wealthy, but abandoned to avaricious, malicious, unloving political, civil service and contractor robbery gangs. We are so mediocre that we over-celebrate a good flyover and most politicians call for Public Private Partnerships to cover up theft. All but a few of our leaders are short on vision, moral and fiscal probity and social responsibility.

    What level will corruption reach in 2013? Are EFCC and ICP strategising to proactively counter it? We know about bulky naira, slim dollars and sex as bribes. But as Otedola/ Lawan may know, cash is difficult to conceal even in a hat. Could we have flamboyant political wives, expensive girlfriends and political WIP, ‘Women In Power’, preferring ‘Naomi Campbell/ Taylor’ ‘love’ diamonds to dollars. They are concealable in eba and play boxes of grandchildren where EFCC may miss an ABCD – ‘A Bag of Cut Diamonds’. While you wait to see some VIP, the secretary may sing ‘Diamonds are madam’s best friend’ or ask the oga’s PA what is her favourite Bond film? You guessed it -‘Diamonds are forever’. Do not rush abroad to order ‘A Bag of Corruption Diamonds’.

    In 2013, governments must be pre-emptive and put job creating, money saving, 5-10,000 roving EFCC, ICPC financial ‘follow the money’ book keeping, computer literate audit staff and computerised auditing everywhere as ‘Preventive Anti-Corruption Drives’. Computerisation is resisted by crooked staff. Is NPA computerised? Ask Pa Anenih. Stop corruption in NPA in 2013! Jail the monitors with the crooks if they take bribes.

    ‘Catch Corruption Early’ should be the 2013 anticorruption slogan as Nigeria cannot survive such huge losses. Why was the pension fraud not discovered early, at N1m or even N10m? Find out and correct this on NPA and elsewhere now.

    The monitoring auditors and Directors should be tried for ‘dereliction of duty’ and ‘Financial Terrorism’. Nigeria’s financial incompetence has allowed one individual, with accomplices to ‘disappear’ more than N23,500,000,000 or $150,000,000 or N250/Nigerian or N80,000/serving police man and woman. Did past IGPs benefit? Are all involved being persecuted? How much did he retain? Can EFCC remain incorruptible? ‘Class action’ and individual legal cases of ‘negligence’, ‘theft’, murder’ and ‘Grievous Mental and Bodily Harm- GMBH, can be brought by police and surviving family.

    Then he can be tried by government for financial terrorism, malignant incompetence and anti-government activities which have done more damage, killed more and caused more misery than Boko Haram and MEND together. He smiles arrogantly having taken N23.5+ billion from police known for extra-judicial killings and accidental discharge for N20.

    A country’s financial controls are as important as physical police controls to security. Pre-emptive strike forensic audit vigilance can prevent such scams. Police pensioners say no diversionary ‘Go for Verification or Biometric Data Capture’ in the sun. Pay them quickly. Nigerians must stop needless suffering!

  • FAAN’s Aircraft Wealth to Waste; Mali; The Highway War: FERMA vs State vs citizens

    FAAN’s Aircraft Wealth to Waste; Mali; The Highway War: FERMA vs State vs citizens

    As Nigeria’s President boasts 4,700Mw as an ‘achievement’, the world frowns at the poverty of purposeful Nigerian governance over 40 years. But the leaders Obasanjo1, Buhari, Babangida, Abdulsalami, Obasanjo2 do not apologise. Some show avarice, seeking profit from failure, getting new electricity contracts. African leaders seeking legacies should ‘Go Solar’ before someone sells our sunshine to America.

    The Minister of Aviation should intervene in FAAN’s instruction for old planes to be removed or they will be sold as scrap for plates and spoons –‘A New FAAN Scientific Aircraft-Wealth-to-Kitchen-Waste Programme.’ Bad! We all saw the Space Shuttle Atlantis piggybacked across America. Can Nigeria send the planes for display/dissection to universities/polytechnics by an Aviation Ministry/FAAN phone call to Vice Chancellors/Provosts/Ministries of Education or Science? What country misses this chance to teach live aircraft technology to youth? Nigeria of course! At least one plane left in each airport can kick-start new Airport Museums/Exhibition Centres.

    International reporters on the Mali war, should not reveal military detail on Breaking News. This puts soldiers at risk.

    The on-going Highway War in Nigeria between states and citizens opens the roads and improves IGR, Internally Generated Revenue. When is IGR ‘IGRobbery’? There are new combatants, 3000 FERMA federal recruits, under ‘employment drive’ as highway soldiers. The FERMA will copy, counter and cancel the financial and political successes of state highway soldiers at Ogere, Lagos expressway end etc, forcing them to withdraw to state roads. Will FERMA’s tactics also be ‘pouncing’, extortion, bribery, threats of violence and entrapment without warning or signboards?

    Why are highway soldiers never ‘friendly’ or ‘helpful’ even for an ‘Act of God’ flat tyre, engine failure or not-your-fault accident? A person with those is ‘Not A Traffic Offender’! Distinguish between a traveller-in-need-of-help and a wilful-traffic-offender and offer service not censure.

    Why do we only adopt half of anything from abroad leaving maximum room for ABC – Abuse, Bribery, Corruption? Where are the – ‘Traffic Offence Tickets’ and ‘2-4 Weeks To Pay The Fine’, a helping hand or a ‘Preventive Measure Is Better Than Cure’, Cautionary Announcement, or 1st and 2nd Warning? In Nigeria you ‘Arrest’ for a simple ‘apologisable’ mistake. The training is AAA, Arrest-Arrest-Arrest or ‘Arass- Arass-Arass’ as in ‘Harass’ and not ‘Help’. Without the civility of warning signs, directions, ‘advice to move’ they, by powers-invested-in-them, unseen edicts, bye-laws and ‘arrogance-of-uniform’, they intimidate, extort, seize vehicles and demand immediately payable fines of N25,000 which only politicians think is small and carry around. The Nigerian road fines are outrageous, disproportionate to income. N25,000 for cars is 1.5 months or 45 days minimum wage. The same N25,000 or £100 fine is imposed in London where it is just 2-4 days minimum wage. The equivalent fine based on London’s wages would be £500-700.

    Reduce the fines to N2,500 or increase the minimum wage to N120,000-240,000/month. Having been saved by IGP Abubakar from N12-24billion annual extortion at police checkpoints, is the Nigerian traveller to suffer from unsupervised FERMA? Gear-up for a new FERMA para-military onslaught. Instead of developing our roads with strong teams of road signs providers, instant year-round pothole fillers and road lane wideners during the ‘dry seasons’ of the last 30 years, FERMA just copies state highway soldiers. Federal Ministry of Works, please concentrate on rainy season pothole filling, increasing and improving Nigeria’s road surfaces and networks. Do not ‘police’ rubbish roads!

    Highway soldiers lay traps and want roads without cars. BEWARE WHERE YOU STOP AND SHOP. Avoid stopping when hailed by a vendor who may be colluding in an ensnarement scam. Tyres, batteries and luggage may be ‘flattened’ or disappear during arrest. In Nigeria the best plans are distorted, disrupted and destroyed by the implementers who see‘power’ and ‘bribes’, not ‘service’. This is exactly like Nigeria’s politics –a failure. Let someone start a road blog/website FERMAWatch to post our experiences with these Highway soldiers.

    To curb youthful arrogance and dishonesty, highway soldiers need supervision by honest, fair and sympathetic supervisors. The honest supervisors are oppressed by under-budgeting. Many demand and or receive corruption-driven presents, cash-filled envelopes as routine ‘Please give us a pass mark’. This has been taken to mega-levels by NASS whose supervisors of national budgetary activities regularly disgrace themselves by demanding or happily receiving ‘gifts’ during ‘oversight functions’. Can the reported outcomes, the televised insults or praise during subsequent public sittings and NASS sessions be traced to gifts-a bribe? Such bribes are worthy of resignation, prosecution of the politicians. All Hail Oteh, the only CEO bold enough to ‘whistleblow’ this extortion.

    In addition to ambulances, waste trucks, tractors, buses, bridges and flyovers, busy Oyo State Governor Ajimobi has empowered Local Inspectors of Education, LIEs with inspection vehicles. Great! The country should provide something to inspect/supervise. Fill Nigeria’s schools with books, science and sports equipment. Text and library books, not exercise books!

    The Oyo State Retreat at the University of Ibadan afforded welcome long-abandoned Town/Gown interaction. UI/ NISER have been ignored except for taxation. During the retreat, the Ministry of Environment’s YESO army interacted by advancing on the citizenry in an unnecessarily belligerent manner, for Internally Generated Revenue. Pity! Three of my clinic nurses paid a total of N75,000 for ‘illegal parking’ on the Yemetu road, Ibadan. No warning. No signboard. Just pounce, arrest, seize car overnight, fine. It should not be necessary to extort money by IGRobbery, to buy development. Law-abiding citizens need instructions not accusations of anti-government agendas. Citizens also went to UI.

  • Is the political party corruption? Are soldier’s and politician’s oaths different? Davos!

    Is the political party corruption? Are soldier’s and politician’s oaths different? Davos!

    Nigeria is at a needless moral and monetary crossroads from theft and stealing- masquerading as ‘corruption’ which seems to be a judicially ‘forgivable sin of politics’. Quite apart from the massive and multi-dimensional financial extortion and theft in cash there is the ‘other corruption’- lost leadership, poor decision-making, ethnic protectionist decision making, false federalism, inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic discrimination and social immorality. Even ‘plea bargaining’ has been Nigerianised for politicians and billionaires. But judicial equity exists only if a goat thief can ‘plea bargain’ away a three year prison sentence by returning goat’s tail, leg or skin if the police and judiciary have not chopped the evidence!

    ‘Are you a politician and corrupt and a thief?’ If ‘yes’ step aside. 2013 Nigeria has no place for you. ‘Can serving politicians become non-corrupt and non-thieving?’ ‘Why are they corrupt and thieving anyway?’ ‘If we had better policing and anti-corruption agencies, would political corruption and thieving reduce?’

    Let us get something straight about politics and democracy in Nigeria. The current political class is making Nigerian citizens feel that they, not the politicians, are ‘the problem’ with Nigerian democracy. It is even the mantra of public lectures. After recommending Public Private Partnerships to fill the huge hole left by official government corruption and provide more money to steal, the lectures target the citizens for not overcoming massive electoral fraud or not ‘Arab springing’ and of course dying. ‘A citizenship gets the government it deserves’ summarises the attitude. But the citizens, especially non-civil service private sector citizens, have suffered billions in lost incomes during strikes, Nigerians have died, over 500 during the Abiola annulment and since then assassinations, maiming and lethal political violence incidents. The people of Nigeria are told to forget the rigging, cheating, cross carpeting, unknown candidates all misnamed benignly as ‘political electioneering’ instead of ‘Crimes Against Nigeria’. Somehow when the word ‘political’ is put in front of a murder or election forgery it is transformed into an unsolvable ‘lesser crime’ a misdemeanour, a juvenile incident, a joke, judicially ‘alright’. No punishment. ‘Go for re-election and please do it properly this time!’ Rubbish! Political crimes must be punished in prison, like for goat theft. A vote is more valuable than a goat. Nigerians, your misguided acceptance N500 to vote is not the cause of our political problems.

    Politicians, military and civilian, cannot escape blame for Nigeria’s failure to provide 100,000Mw power, books and sports equipment for all schools, pothole free transport and modern 200kph railways and MDGs with all the riches God has given to Nigeria. The people were never at decision-making business meetings, contract awards where Nigeria’s budgets were divided between greedy political parties, contractors and potholes.

    It seems the political party is designed as the greatest corruption organ in Nigeria draining the budgets of the nation through fictitious or inflated contracts and extortion from contractors and consultants, having access without accountability? Politicians are not infants but adults who voluntarily and automatically take responsibility for development and are solely responsible for their actions and inactions, their morals and immorality.

    Our soldiers from 18 years will be fighting and dying in Mali for what reward? Already the first two have died on home soil? Our policemen, some just 18 are ‘training’ in a pigsty. Congrats to IGP Abubakar and Channel CSR Project for this ‘revelation’ about the Ikeja Police College that we all know. Many years ago, the Americans sent to teach new techniques at the College had to leave because it was not fit for animals. But it is an widespread educational malady in ‘pigsty’ secondary and tertiary hostels and schools across Nigeria while Nigeria’s politicians grow fatter. What is the Police College’s annual budget over 30 years? Who stole it? Who underfunded the college? Who dehumanises the trainees? Which past IGPs now advising Abubakar on ‘good police governance’ neglected the Police College and used it as punishment posting for senior officers? Today the seniors of these 18+ year olds are dying daily in kidnappings, robberies, bank attacks and terror attacks. They die as adults, often unmourned. They, like the soldiers, took an oath to protect Nigerians and serve the country, laying down their lives.

    Politicians also take a sworn oath to serve with honesty. Does it not matter to their souls? So even if they are fraudulent with honesty, the oath to serve Nigeria is still binding. So the politician must be anti-corrupt and honest. But can good come out of bad? What was the original motivation for running? Corruption?

    This ‘’politicians’ responsibility’’ argument does not absolve the electorate from some responsibility. Within one week a politician had demands from his constituents totalling over N5million for school and hospital bills. Citizens invite politicians to functions, expecting megabucks. Citizens elevate the politician to a minor god by bowing to ‘Excellency’, ’First Lady’, ‘Distinguished’, ‘Honourable’. Citizens create the political monster and are surprised that it bites them!

    Where would Nigeria be without the Corporate Social Responsibility, the Parent Teachers and Old Students Associations, NGOs, DFID, USAID etc? ‘Government cannot do it alone’ is a smokescreen for corruption and the need for Public Private Partnerships is questioned in the light of a trillion naira losses to corruption scams.

    DAVOS World Economic Summit must begin to get a new deal for the world’s poor or the revolutions will be worldwide. How can Morgan Stanley ‘return to profitablity’ and not repay ruined shareholders?

  • The colour of rape; Prevention; Rainy season Road works and 365 day FRSC Campaign

    The colour of rape; Prevention; Rainy season Road works and 365 day FRSC Campaign

    The colour of rape is the title of a short story in my book Nene And Other Stories published by Bookcraft. Rape is a beast attacking a less powerful being. Why is it that the poor in strength must die ‘to live’ and get justice? The Indian student called ‘India’s daughter’ dying 13 days after being raped and thrown out a moving bus is horrifying. All such boys’ or men’s evil plans and recordings for facebook coverage of such heinous acts says a lot about the social, family, institutional, medical, police and legal stigma, systems and structures in many countries involving black, white and yellow peoples i.e. worldwide. Naturally Nigeria is replete with similar episodes from the poor to the privileged, from disorganised to organised society and even police stations are involved in such violent abuse of uniform privilege. Kidnap by political thugs and ritualists for rape, ritual and other abuses in public transport are rife.

    The dangers to female petty traders and hawkers are well documented but still young girls and even educated female bank officials are sent unaccompanied to ‘the male meat market’ i.e. the rooms, houses and offices of customers and clients to deliver wears from bread to requesting bank deposits and to collect money owed or promised often at a high price- rape. Does the girl or woman ordinarily want sex in those circumstances? Remember that non-consensual sex, we-did-not-agree-but-I-had-to-or-he-would-have-become-violent-or-denied-me-my-goods sex, even when not resisted sex, is also rape. The female should she be expected to die in order to prove beyond a doubt that she was raped. Prevention is better than cure as you cannot cure a rape victim. The memory is never erased by love or money but justice is a good start. But as any rape victim knows, a lawyer’s probing questions are almost as humiliating as the rape but even more public.

    Prevention and successful prosecution includes proper, easily read and remembered numbering of taxis, okada, danfos and their drivers for easy identification, driver ID stuck to the back of driver’s seat so that back-seat passengers can identify the driver and vehicle ID which are all used to prevent sexual assault, robberies and other attacks in normal countries. What sexual excesses and crimes, lecturer-student, student-student, lecturer-lecturer, go unreported in our tertiary institutions? To quickly get a legal case from any rape that will stand up in court, the NMA, Nurses council and government police, health and legal ministries must ensure that the ‘International RAPE PROTOCOL’ is available and operational in clinics, hospitals, police stations and female and male prisons. Are medical students, nurses and police officers taught this protocol during undergraduate, tertiary, postgraduate and cadet training? Are sympathetic female police officers automatically chosen for investigation and interviews in rape cases?

    All women politicians, perhaps this will be a useful use of so-called first ladies, civil servants, corporate women, women’s groups in and out of government and women NGOS should set aside their political and ethnic and religious differences and take a real constructive visible and vocal STAND AGAINST RAPE’ in the media and on the roads, putting ‘RAPE’ on the agenda. Beyond powerful rallies, banners, posters and television and radio talks a lot of education and preventive information strategies must be done by and to the male sectors of the country as they are the perpetrators. Specifically this should target male market boys, area boys, thugs, secondary schools, tertiary institutions, religious leaders targeting religious youth organisations and the targeting of male dominated government organs like the civil service, the armed forces, the police, customs, Civil Defence, FRSC and NGOS like Boy Scouts, Man O War, the Red Cross etc to educate firstly themselves and then targeted segments of the community. The citizens can be easily engaged through the use of slogans and songs in Nollywood and Nollysongs and even careful use of comedy and MCs at public promotional functions using local languages on the air. A neglected educational avenue is the multibillion naira poster commercial market. Posters can declare messages like ‘RAPE IS NOT OK, IT SHOULD BE 21 YEAR JAILABLE CRIME.’ ‘REPORT OFFENDERS.’ ‘DATE – DO NOT RAPE’. ‘LET HER ‘NO’ MEAN ‘NO’ TO YOU’. ‘HER ‘NO’ MEANS ‘NO’. ‘WHEN YOU RAPE –THERE IS NO ESCAPE’ ‘FROM YOUR CONSCIENCE AND THE COURT’. Imagine the local and global impact if such a variety of messages are adopted by advert gurus for corporations who make billions of advert stickers and posters daily like Coca Cola, Pepsi, MTN, Glo, Etisalat, Star, Gulder, Guinness, Malta, Maggi, etc and immediately include them in their advert material for campaigns.

    The Nov/Dec 2012 repair the ‘holiday roads’ must be extended 12 months a year, as in normal countries. If Nigerian governments and contractors are too incompetent for rainy season work, they should quit and let another government come in or compress 12 months’ work into the dry season by double time work, day and night, with extra crews. Actually due to ‘incompetent mobilisation’ we only have three months a year to build Nigeria’s road network, so it will be 2080 that we get our East West Road and our second Niger Bridge, which governments have failed to deliver for over 30 years. I go don die!

    Similarly, if FRSC claims its EMBER campaign a success, government should direct FRSC to conduct EMBER level of activities year-round to keep sanity on the roads. Start with an FRSC ‘UARY’ CAMPAIGN.

  • MEXAHNYIA; VIP or RIP? Nigeria is trillions rich; Resolutions Oteh Vs NASS: Who Wins the Moral War?

    MEXAHNYIA; VIP or RIP? Nigeria is trillions rich; Resolutions Oteh Vs NASS: Who Wins the Moral War?

    Suddenly it is Christmas and a Merry Christmas And Happy New Year in advance-MEXAHNYIA to you. It has been some year. The recognition of the VIP dead should not be so blatantly to the exclusion of the ‘equally dead’ as we are all equal before God. The VIP dead do not jump Heaven’s Gate queue. They have to line up for judgement in exactly the order in which they died, interspersed with the thousands of RIPs who died ‘unknown’ in that timeframe –nanosecond by nanosecond. A thousand years is like a second and a second is like a thousand years. Remember that all the victims in the helicopter crash, VIP and RIP are all equally dead and the families are equally bereaved and half-orphaned. We know the future differential difficulty of the widows in receiving benefits. So please remember all of them in your prayers. It is better to die alone or else you be forever among the ‘and 4 or 340 others’. But there is no choice.

    Nigeria is really, really rich as can be seen by the probably trillion naira corruption and the budget of N4,987,000,000,000 which is N 41,553/Nigerian. It is now clear that if we can kill, dehumanise and vilify corruption and corrupt acts and corrupt people in an acute, decisive manner, Nigeria will save trillions. You can take a New Year’s Resolution Oath that from Jan 1 2013 you and Nigeria will start ‘An Anticorruption Year’ we may jump further down the Most Corrupt Transparency International List and also up the Amnesty International List-since corruption is not just about money but how we treat or ill-treat or mistreat our fellow Nigerians through bad decisions, no decisions, delayed decisions etc.

    Can resolutions replace revolutions?

    Why can NASS members not see the opprobrium with which they are viewed by the massed poor people? There is very little that NASS membership can do that will increase the individual members and collective NASS reputation. Shouting and screaming at ‘witnesses’ and warrants of arrest are seen as mere playing to the gallery. NASS’s excessive acquisition of the nation’s funds for ‘personnel’ comfort, work and even self-imposed and undeserved disengagement, ‘soft landing’ pension schemes, kick-started the recent ‘salary grab’. At this time, NASS members should make a sacrificial 2013 New Year’s Resolution. Since they set their own funds, they should do the right thing and take a big pay-cut in SAP –‘Salaries and Perks’ which are now sapping Nigeria dry. It was this ‘self-imposed political office-holders greed’ that caused salary inflation nationwide. This politicians’ salary cut, if it comes, will help reverse inflation. NASS and the government political classes must know that corruption, political salaries and excesses are glaring abuses while over 100m live in poverty without housing, water, power, health or education or even adequate nutrition.

    After the cutting of political salaries and allowances it will be the turn of the CBN to deliberately improve the naira exchange rate as this will drag many Nigerians above the poverty line. If the value of the naira to the dollar improves by just N1 per month we will lift 10-20m out of poverty per annum. If we add to that a sincere effort to reduce bank lending rates from 20+% to a single digit and get 24 hour power, Nigeria could become heaven-on-earth provided we tackle the crime situation. The abysmal lack of police empowerment from the federal government and a culture of judicial tardiness are noted as major problems. These are not stupid dreams but today’s norms in normal countries.

    Is the NASS onslaught against Oteh a rear-guard action instigated by wounded NASS forces because she, in self-defence at being publicly tongue-lashed and ‘abused’, exposed the soft underbelly of NASS ‘corruption’ in ‘funded trips without travel’ and dared to confront NASS? Is this a genuine campaign against a bad Oteh based on facts? No doubt she will relocate and find herself in a cushy job abroad. Let this be a warning to foreign based ‘industry players’ seeking to ‘save Nigeria’. Nigeria wants people who will play ball. The home players do not like to be exposed and react with protective herd mentality.

    The attempt to starve Oteh out by starving SEC of funds for salaries etc is a typically Machiavellian move used by all dictators – collective punishment. It is sinister and evil. We may later use it on NASS to weed out those who ‘chop our money’ and SAP us dry from fat and indecent SAP- Salaries and Perks. No matter the victory of NASS it is a Pyrrhic victory, won at huge cost to a badly battered NASS reputation from allegations of payments for oversight, gifts, double payments at every point during tours and oversight functions. It is not so long ago that Ghana Must Go accompanied budgetary meetings and Bill approvals. We hope these have stopped but they are still part of NASS history and well documented thanks among others to the Oteh episode. Oteh has thus prevented much corruption in 2013. Does she deserve a National Honour? So what did Oteh do to make them unite against one woman? In America, Susan Rice fell before the Republican backlash against Obama. Oteh lost the battle but she has unwittingly led and won the moral war. No NASS member can ever again demand tickets and freebies during oversight without fearing exposure. The fear of Oteh may sanitise NASS.

  • Corruption’s cure is surgery, not softly softly!; Demon of Democracy! A new Armada 2012

    Corruption’s cure is surgery, not softly softly!; Demon of Democracy! A new Armada 2012

    So the thirst season of death is not yet over. Helicopters drop from the sky / Generals and Governors die/ Sabotage, mechanical or human error /Mistake or a form of terror / Their secrets to be buried in the earth/ Just what is a human life worth?/ And who will be next?

    Almost N1,000,000,000,000, one thousand billion naira, spent on fuel imports only because we refuse to operate and police functioning refineries guided by our chemical and petroleum technologists and engineers. This represents lost employment to Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Portugal. Shame!

    This petroleum ‘subsidy’ is only subsidising failure of the refineries and is a N1,000billion needless drain on our resources and a loud attestation to our CINS of Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence and Selfishness. Nigerians in oil power would rather roundtrip to ‘chop our money’ than refine oil for us at home. An intelligent country would have recruited the local technology from the 2,000 ‘illegal’ Niger Delta refineries to make them legal. Hiking prices is not an answer to national governance failure. How can any of our past six rulers in Nigeria explain why a village in the USA has more power than Nigeria at present -4,000Mw.

    Meanwhile British, VIP, Very Imprisoned Prisoner Ibori collects N50m/year as retirement benefit after being a governor. These self-imposed ‘legalised illegalities’, perpetual goodies from the national and state treasury merely for holding political offices are immoral and insult Nigerians and a slap in the face for pensioners denied pension for years. Why should Nigerians be punished in this way. This is not a dividend but a demon of democracy.

    The arrogance with which Senate ‘Rules out’ voting in the diaspora is reminiscent of a military government decreeing stupid laws against natural justice and simple easily implementable IT computer programmes. Remember that many Nigerians collectively send billions home annually as respected citizens. Even Egypt allows diaspora voting. Such voting is available for many countries abroad including France, Germany and the USA. We should demonstrate our ability to recruit our citizens abroad, largely forced abroad by SAP, Babangida, Abacha, poor economy and education and mismanaged democracy. Shame on Senate as we once again lose an opportunity to catch up in democratic ‘modern methods.’

    Of course the Senate knows that 90% of those abroad will never vote for the ruling party because they are themselves political and economic refugees from the same system that is killing us at home. They should also expect to vote. By the 2015 election we would have had, and as usual wasted, four years to prepare and computerise a Diaspora Voters Register for each country through our embassies should not be nuclear physics. Another ‘Democracy Paradise Lost’ opportunity lost to the evil machinations of petty partisan politics.

    Does no one see the big picture –‘Nigeria Okays Diaspora Voting for Passport Carrying Citizens’? It is not too late to make Nigeria great by forcing the Senate to reverse this decision, a slap in the face of millions of Nigerians abroad and our IT capability. After all we have SATNav1 and 2 and thousands of jobless IT ‘experts’ and the voters programme is available for purchase and modification from democratic and IT compliant nations. Senate should not make an undemocratic mountain out of this political molehill. How dare senators attend international parliamentary group meetings when they are so anti-democratic? There should be a letter to Senate ‘Campaign to reverse this obnoxious ruling’.

    Maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar dies at 92, 1920-2012. He popularised internationally, the Sitar, a complex guitar-like Indian instrument to Beatles’ George Harrison, in Bollywood and Attenborough’s Ghandi. A clean living man who kept his reputation against all norms of the period, RIP. Meanwhile many of Nigeria’s greats struggle on without grants, recognition or support or commissions. Bruce Onabrakpeya is 80. When he dies we will have a big cow-killing because ‘we have lost an irreplaceable gem’ party. A museum now will be preferable.

    There are more than 60 large vessels on the Atlantic Coast sitting off the Lagos harbour waiting to enter port, as any news hungry crew with binoculars or a helicopter and a tiny bit of investigative journalistic DNA knows. This 2012 Armada is caused by the massive corruption and lack of management of the ports in Nigeria which have failed to grow to meet demand. The cost is unquantifiable but it must be quantified by social science and political science and NISER staff and student losses to demurrage, to neighbouring countries from diversion of 100s of ships per annum, to multiple corruption layers from different ‘security and anti-corruption’ agencies, to exit ‘fees’ charged by gatemen for container carrying trailers instead of railways- the true mark of a modern container port. ‘Nigeria Incorporated’ must go down in history as the worst run company in the world and a lesson in incompetence and warning to our children as a company that managed to loose.

    Corruption is Nigerian politics’ greatest ‘Dividend of Democracy’ to the Nigeria electorate. But Nigerians know that corruption can and will be stopped immediately, once the conditions are right when the right leaders and followers will be in place. Is a murderer asked to murder less and less or a rapist to rape less and less or a wife beater to beat less and less monthly? Even our police had the checkpoints cut off suddenly by the incumbent IGP –an amazing feat needing repeating.

     

  • Berger; Rich Nigeria; Anti-corruption plan; Punish bad advisers; Passing Amnesty and TI exams

    Berger; Rich Nigeria; Anti-corruption plan; Punish bad advisers; Passing Amnesty and TI exams

    Ogere lanes are trailer-free at last! But for how long? Berger, RCC and FRSC must manage traffic better with only very senior, not lowly, officers making plans and taking traffic closure and diversion decisions. Berger and RCC are known for their high contract fees and Nigerians, their employer, expect to be treated with respect on the road in 2012.

    Nigeria is rich but some lie that Nigeria is poor. But check first class in any plane for ‘poor’ government officials and politicians. Presidents can steal 50% of the budget and other corruption takes 50% of the rest and Nigeria still manages to survive on the 25% remaining and the survival strategies of our daily-paid market women and hawkers. Ever hungry, the greedy Nigerian leadership captures the struggling taxed person in cashless systems to ‘chop their money’ also.

    Imagine what Nigeria would have become if every corrupt scheme revealed since 1999 had been nipped in the bud by a vigilant computerised bank police or EFCC or ICPC? What has Nigeria budget to do with the $700,000,000 or N105,000,000,000 – N105billion or N1050/Nigerian Abacha loot and all other stolen loot? The mothers it was meant to save are now dead, the youth it was meant to save are now despondent and recruited for trafficking and prostitution or unemployed, the hospitals lack that equipment, the libraries and laboratories in schools are empty, the Lagos-Ibadan and Ore-Benin and the East-West Highway lack their third lane or rehabilitation or completion, 10m deadly potholes remain unfilled. These and free health, free education, free non-toll roads, cheaper agricultural products, reduced taxes, toll free roads were all expected from that money.

    When generals get greedy and politicians get peckish, they, like locusts, lay bare the land. Horrifyingly, Abacha’s name still survives on a stadium as a monument to his corruption suspected to be in excess of $7,000,000,000, N1,050,000,000,000/ N1,050billion or N10,500/Nigerian. Remember the First Gulf Oil Windfall $12.5b, N1,875,000,000,000 or N1,875billion or N18,750/Nigerian believed by the Financial Times of UK to have been ‘lost’ under Babangida. The most recent examples of colossal corruption being N275b petroleum subsidy scandal, multibillion naira pension debacle, unascertained corruption in Customs, unfathomable ignored un-investigated corruption in NPA where ‘saint’ PDP leader Bamanga Tukor held sway, when a private $5m non-refundable loan for a ship was believed to have been floated and set sail, the nation’s real tax cheats and any bribe-demanding FIRS and their local state counterparts, the FRSC and LGA touts who have replaced Police checkpoints and the new improved wole-wole environmental enforcement monsters, and you can see why we have such little faith in Nigeria.

    Corruption thrives in an audit vacuum. Every Nigeria based public and private organisational head can today ‘nip corruption in the bud’ with a Department-based anti-corruption ‘Early Warning Keeping It Clean Policy’. In every office introduce this ‘Six Point Anti-corruption Plan’: 1. Anti-corruption Regular Weekly Internal Auditing. 2. Anti-corruption Monthly not Annual External Auditing. 3. Anti-corruption Compulsory Cellphone Bank Account Alerts to 10 senior staff in event of money movement in or out of the account. 4. Anti-corruption employment and training of anti-corruption staff. 5. Anti-corruption Signatures, increase to 4 to 5 on all accounts. 6. Anti-corruption Invitation to EFCC and ICPC, in short anti-corruption rotation randomly chosen by ballot, to staff a desk in the organisation.

    Since 1999, we are still ‘surprised’ at corruption. Of course elimination of fertiliser fraud and the nauseating sums of money being made public are a step, but prosecutions and subsequent convictions are in order but government paradoxically reduces the judiciary budget. Happily the NASS is seeking an upward revision of this. What does the judiciary need to reduce our court case times by 50%? As the budget is being discussed NASS should note that the Israelis are building 3000 homes –just like that- while we arrogantly demolish 300 home estates in a 14,000,000 home deficit country. Don’t look at the politics. Look at the facts. In a country where 80% live on less than $1 /day, how dare anyone budget N7-9,000,000,000 for the Vice President’s compound and a further N2,200,000,000 for an Aso Rock extension to the Presidential banquet hall? This totals more than N10,000,000,000 or N100/Nigerian available for low income housing.

    The crazy civil servants and Special Advisers responsible for these outrageous plans should be identified, exposed, censured and probably sacked. Only punishment will caution others. They cannot claim anonymity for their stupid decisions. For example, which civil servants stopped the Lagos-Ibadan road from being made three and four lanes over the last 40 years? Someone must have been ir-responsible. The ministry already has approved plans by the World Bank contractor in 2008. How much was he paid for government’s ‘breach of contract?’ The contract should have been returned to that same contractor.

    And yet the leadership lectures young Nigerians on ‘sacrifice’ and why free education is not possible and why they should be patient because ‘Rome was not built in a day’. Well Rome was eventually built and if the Roman leadership was as greedy as Nigeria’s, there would be no Rome today and there may be no Nigeria tomorrow. Success is not achieved by vitriolic political complaints against Amnesty International and Transparency International methodology and conclusions. Nigeria should learn to pass this annual exam, honestly with PQPs and a ‘Pass Examination Formula’ and national strategy –better human rights, a better coordinated anti-corruption drive.

  • Talk without tactics; Judicial Performance Record; Emergency electric power; Split road contracts into 10

    Talk without tactics; Judicial Performance Record; Emergency electric power; Split road contracts into 10

    Road officials nationwide should operate 7am to 9pm even on Sundays at every jammed junction.

    Warning about newspaper articles: ‘Agreement without action’, ‘words without work’ and ‘talk without tactics’ are worthless. Those who love Nigeria must take action –like NGOs on the ‘First $12.5b Gulf Oil Windfall’ where their court case was thrown out perhaps for lack of jurisdiction or time lapse or even that the NGOs ‘lack authority to represent the people’. But has the money expired? Has a NGO no right to enquire about the common wealth? More NGOS should follow this lead. Unfortunately the government lawyer relished the moment publically but the moral shoe is on the other foot. Millions of Nigerians wept watching him boasting as yet another opportunity to expose the truth was thwarted ‘legally’. The war against corruption has not started. Judges know they could die without being remembered for ‘moral judgements’ unlike UK’s Lord Denning and Nigeria’s Justice Kayode Eso.

    Eventually the judiciary must learn courage or face ridicule and ‘watchdog’ judicial enquiry. In fact a compulsory monthly updated computer-based ‘Magistrates and Judges Performance Record’ for evidence-based keeping track of ‘sick leaves’, injunctions, adjournments, no shows, wrong jurisdiction courts and technicalities, adjournments, case length, judgements and reversals on Appeal should be created by the Judicial Council or NGOS. Such a performance record will paradoxically help protect judges from corruption pressure. Is it not amazing that from infamous Pol Pot to Pinochet to today, the excuse of ‘sickness’ ridicules the judicial process as an excuse for ‘alternative’ incarceration in VIP hospital or hotel instead of a prison cell? Their dead and murdered victims had no ‘sick-off’ to avoid execution.

    Nigeria should be in a hurry to right the wrongs of decades of incompetent rulership. The pain of a pothole is when it is filled and you remember the needless suffering from rubbish road works. The pain of electricity powerlessness is when you visit those with 24 hour power and discover they are black like you and do not have two heads or a generator at home, office and everywhere.

    Job creation means work in building the 14,000,000 Nigerian homes. Japan replaced all power losses from its shutdown nuclear plant within 3 months using known international emergency electricity companies. Japanese did not starve of power while awaiting a new power station. Nigeria’s multi-billion budget for publically funded generators, fuel and maintenance charges could be better spent on cheaper, large scale, emergency power pending ‘the final solution to power problems’ –the IPPs. So let us remove generators, fuel and maintenance items, except for hospitals, from all government budgets, offices and homes from the presidency, politicians and public officials and PHCN staff. If we do this from Jan 1st 2013 power will ‘flow’. Power is an emergency and a right, not a dividend of democracy. To put our 100,000MW pathetic political power failure in perspective, every single Nigerian from barber to baker to banker would be 10-30% better off financially if power was constant. They would be able to invest in and increase non-oil business and employment by 10-30%. Of course the petroleum billionaires would be 40-50% poorer if Nigeria’s generators dry up as fuel consumption would go down. Hurray!

    A 300 Level undergraduate of Political Science told me today that they have never analysed current affairs in class. It is time for curriculum change to include ‘Application of Today’s Lecture to World and Local Events’. Undergraduates in every discipline need a lecturer guided/ student space to discuss and research Nigeria’s pathetic state every day.

    Potholes are filled year round in countries like Thailand with monsoon rainy season. Nigerian roads are mysteriously abandoned during ‘rainy season’ –disgracing Nigerian professionals. Nigeria must fill potholes 365 days a year and work day and night during the dry season.

    Teachers should teach NASS and government an old mathematical puzzle – ‘If it takes one farmer 10 days to plough a field, how long would it take 10 farmers to do the same field? Answer ‘One day’. So why does Nigeria not divide all roads into sections of 10-20km for 5 or 10 contractors? Road mega-contracts have failed Nigeria, creating 1 or 2 billionaires and millions of road sufferers and failed projects nationwide. A country is not made great by billionaires but by its other classes. Multiple small contracts will produce a quick execution of contracts, healthy rivalry, competitive quotations, more happy contractor families, more spread of wealth, 10 times the employment, fewer exclusive yachts and private jets. Governments must initiate a ‘Split Contract Policy’ of ‘Prove why the contract should not be split’.

    CBN governor Sanusi’s comments about workers reduction require dispassionate thought. The origin of our recent financial problems is the excesses of the NASS ‘Salaries And Perks’ precipitating the ‘Second Nigerian SAP programme’ after Babangida’s First SAP programme. This caused a backlash of supersalary demands among other political appointees, civil servants and states and LGAs. The CBN could deliberately improve the naira at say N1/month over 4 years and bring down the 12% interbank interest rates and the 21-25% bank interest rate. This would have reducing the cost of living. Nigeria is eating its own hands. To save the economy, put politicians on a sitting part-time allowance and target strategies for a naira of N120: $1 by 2015. Strengthening the naira will empower salary earners, create jobs, wealth and halve the number of Nigerians living on $1/day.

     

  • Nation Nov 28th Bomb victims compensation. What about Nigeria’s ‘secret’ billionaires and the $12.5b 1st Gulf Oil Windfall?

    Nation Nov 28th Bomb victims compensation. What about Nigeria’s ‘secret’ billionaires and the $12.5b 1st Gulf Oil Windfall?

    Nation Nov 28th Bomb victims compensation; What about Nigeria’s ‘secret’ billionaires and the $12.5b 1st Gulf Oil Windfall? Tony Marinho Yet another Church bombing. This time in Kaduna at the military base-the safest place in the world, abi? Another 11 Nigerians simply trying to live and worship as they are directed by their Maker are blown up, killed and 30 injured for that very reason. And this in spite of our massed Christian prayers nationwide.

    What is the compensation for bombed families? The N260m Boko Haram reward may backfire and be given to Boko Haram secret members. The 2012 top 10 Nigerians whose combined wealth comes officially to $20b or $20,000,000,000 or N3,060,000,000,000 was recently published by Forbes. By a malicious coincidence the court case demanding to know the whereabouts of the Financial Times documented missing $12,500,000 ‘First Oil Windfall’ during Babangida’s ‘benevolent’ time was again adjourned.

    Does that not tell you something? The Forbes Nigerian billionaires’ money mostly comes from Nigeria, a developing country paradoxically dependent on generators for power, and with nearly the highest maternal and infant mortality, lowest literacy, lowest housing and highest pothole rates in the world. Was Nnaji sacked from the Ministry of Power for doing too good a job at trying to fix the abysmal power problem?

    After all some think that Nigerians do not deserve power 24/7. A lot of this $20b came from Nigerians buying cement, a commodity which has mysteriously increased in price by over 300+% from N600 to over N2,000. Petroleum industry and products made up a lot of the rest, though Nigerians suffer nationwide queues and citizens suffer high fuel prices because the refineries are sabotaged by greed and officials. Some of the $20b is from transporting those same petroleum and other products having ensured that the railways are dead or being so slowly modernised as not to make a difference. Nigeria’s potholed roads groan under the overloaded axle weight of cement, petrol and other goods in unnecessary armada of over 70,000 articulated tankers and trailers too frequently crashing, catching fire, delaying and killing citizens and constantly clogging-up.

    Those are the true cost to Nigerians of the $20b in profit for the few. Some of the $20b is in banking, whatever that is.

    No honest Nigerian can enter any bank and walk out in three months with an overdraft or a short term loan even after depositing DNA, birth certificate and the keys to a grandparents grave in Ikoyi Cemetery, and the exchange rate is N153.5 to the $1, so where is all this banking money coming from?

    Is it magic money only for shareholders? Banks expect congratulations for removing a probably illegal but multi millions naira daily ATM charges which should never have been charged in the first place. But bankers have left an equally questionable COT charge. Communications, yes we can see and pay the exorbitant fees, are hoodwinked by the phone-in, vote for so-and-so, bonanzas and promo scams. Such money comes out of the pockets of the gullible faster than the customer can earn it or ask ‘who is speaking’.

    Nigerians should realise there is nothing like ‘Free air time’ unless someone can give you airtime while your money remains in your pocket and can be found in your pocket next morning. And when you check it is never there but in the pockets of the Forbes List of African Nigerian billionaires. Some people have certainly made ‘free billions’ from us mumus etc enjoying ‘’free” midnight chats.

    Cumulatively are hands and dealing of the billionaires clean? There is blood on the roads, in the hospitals, in the schools, in the Niger Delta oil polluted lands and from the bombs of Boko Haram. This blood cannot be washed away with petty donations to victims of water, flood, and other disasters. The citizens should not be over-grateful to the billionaire donors as the money came from the citizens in the first place.

    It does not matter if the whole list of top money men and women are Nigerians in the Forbes Africa Rich List. Nigeria will still be poor until the price of cement comes down, banks reduce interest rates and make loans available, the naira appreciates against the dollar, the communications watchdog extends its ban on promos and bonanzas and reduces tariffs. In a country with 70% living on less than a $1/day, is it a good boast that you are a $ billionaire?

    What is the point of a corporate body ‘boasting’ of giving away a plane costing N48m or N68m when the funds come, not from the company, but from poor gullible Nigerians seeking ‘instant millionairism’. The Nigerian customer is the loser. Nigeria probably has 50 secret billionaires but do they translate to communal wealth or national financial health?

    No, it is all selfish wealth, greed wealth and some of it is cheating wealth? There is a saying that behind ‘every billionaire are a million bad secrets’ and ‘every fortune is a misfortune for others’. Making billions from exploitative cement prices or exploitative banking or computer prices and giving N700,000,000 back to flood or AIDS victims is not charity or the answer. Reduce the price of cement and computers to the masses, reduce the cost of loans, reduce the cost of fuel, increase the naira value and reduce the cost of living. The grave has no space for even $1. Bill Gates seems to know this now. Forbes Africa and the secret billionaires, can sit on the side lines and watch Nigeria die.

  • A season of death: Justice Kayode Eso; Justice Promotion= injustice to accused; Customs: Don’t burn, Donate!

    A season of death: Justice Kayode Eso; Justice Promotion= injustice to accused; Customs: Don’t burn, Donate!

    This November is the season of death. Death is hurrying to make the 2012 quota, just like government’s budgetary ‘last quarter’ mis-spending rush. With the murdered victims of Boko Haram bombs, cattle-farmers wars and floods we also see major deaths in politics, medicine, media and law. No one is ever old enough to die. Professor Bayo Olumide, eminent neurosurgeon, Alhaji Lam Adesina, Dr Olusola Saraki Mr Bode Alalade, broadcaster par excellence and now Justice Kayode Eso. He was the Truth and Reconciliation Icon, true Nigerian, author of books and ‘executive lawlessness’, primus inter pares, legal stellar light, doyen of arbitration, outstanding conversationalist, with great wit. It was always a pleasure to be in his presence. He was partial to the youth and an inspirational iconic role model whenever he graced an Educare Trust activity. Many will recall him being the trial judge who found Wole Soyinka ‘not guilty’ as ‘the man with the gun’ at NBC, Dugbe. May his large heart and soul Rest In Perfect Peace. Amen. With these deaths, governments and media producers have again lost the opportunity to fund historical and motivational documentaries, interviews, Nollywood and radio programmes on making and broadcasting the ‘life and times’ of these great men. Unfortunately, in spite of the well-known anticorruption efforts of Justice Kayode Eso and others, the judiciary is still suspected of corruption, and also stands accused of unnecessary injunctions and adjournments.

    A small inexplicable observation on the legal learned world: The recent celebrated and well deserved elevation of certain justices raises an important legal, moral and economic question while the National Assembly and the Legal Council are preoccupied with deliberating on weighty issues like gay marriage, constitutional review and plea bargaining. Why does the judiciary always make an ‘ass of itself’? Imagine a judge trying several complex cases some for 19 months. Suddenly she is promoted with ‘immediate effect’. If this happened in another professional, business or family sphere we would be in court claiming damages for ‘breach of contract’, ‘deception’, ‘false pretences’ et cetera. Remember this was believed to be the problem at the heart of the Justice Salami affair –to get him out of the way, kicked upstairs. The result is that the cankerworm of injustice breaks out right in the judge’s chambers and the courtroom. If the judges themselves were victims of such injustice would they not be up in judicial arms? Can a country like Nigeria, not known for its expeditious justice delivery service, really afford such expensive judicial ‘luxuries’ or delays? Unfinished cases are abandoned even as we celebrate well-deserved judicial promotions. Later another judge has to start all over again.

    Social science departments, lawyers’ groups like the NBA and FIDA and NGOs like JDPC and Consumer Protection bodies should compute the huge multimillion naira cost of this cause of ‘delayed justice’, cost of a retrial in emotions and frustration, in repeat legal fees and transportation and feeding, the cost to the accused and witnesses, the cost to the country-all totalling N50-100m for such elaborate cases and unquantifiable ‘judicial inconvenience’ by police, prisons, prisoners, witnesses, litigants and lawyers. This cost does not take into consideration the well-known judicial slogan that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. Would it not be better to promote the judge, start the new salary grade but keep him or her as a judge of that court until he or she has finished all existing cases expeditiously, cleared the courtroom desk? Fellow Nigerians, languishing in prison ‘awaiting trial’ and innocent till proved guilty, should be protected from such judicial licence. We are happy when judges are promoted but it is good judicial judgement to ensure that they finish all cases pending before abandoning the court. Indeed why do judges not set aside several days for continuous hearing of a particular case to prevent the ‘adjournment syndrome’.

    Another socio-legal conundrum: On TV we regularly see goods, drugs and tyres being burnt by Customs or NAFDAC or NDLEA. Environmentally speaking tyres should never be burnt in the open because they environmentally toxic substances which pollute the air badly and also damage the lungs of passers-by, even NAFDAC and Customs officials. Tyre burning should be banned nationwide by a Law ‘Burning of Tyre Prohibition Act’. Burning may be the only option to disposal of seized hard drugs if you do not breathe in the drug filled air around the fire, but why does Customs burn all seized goods? Many such endangered goods are not harmful and are still good enough to save lives if donated to the needy flood victims, and repatriated prostitutes from Italy, freed trafficked persons, orphanages, Red Cross and religious organisations known for their non-corrupt humanitarian work. This would be punishment enough for the smugglers. Fund-raising for these groups is a difficult task in Nigeria. So why this ‘seized wealth to waste’ burning? If the authorities burn tyres, a known major pollutant method, why do they not burn the ammunition and guns they seize and what happens to them? So why burn sieved frozen chicken, rice, cloth and clothes in a country where environmental pollution from smoke is a major problem and 70% of the country is in poverty? Customs should be legally empowered and forced to give seized goods to an independent ‘Bureau of Smuggled and Recovered Property’ or NEMA for forwarding to recognised NGOs, orphanages and handicapped schools. Let the poor, not environmental pollution, benefit from seized goods.